Page 20 of The Spite Date (Small Town Sisterhood #1)

WHEN A MAN LOVES A CORN DOG

Simon

The burger bus is delightful when I’m drunk at sunset.

The yellow paint is alive as if my eyes are kaleidoscopes, making the colors swirly and bright. Evening insects are chirping and humming and singing as the sun sets over the trees at the edge of the apartment building’s parking lot. The pictures of Bea’s family are moving.

Not the framed photographs themselves, but rather the people in them.

I can smell the grilling burgers and see her father flipping them and watch as her mother sets more places at their picnic table, and that’s merely one moving photo.

“Eat,” Bea’s mother says.

Except that’s actually Bea, setting a basket of a corn dog and chips before me.

Yes, chips. I refuse to call them fries , no matter how long I have lived primarily in the States.

You cannot make me.

So there.

She balances in a chair across the table from me, still in that sparkly red dress I bought for her. One would think alcohol would render my cock useless, but it’s quite happy right now.

She made me corn dogs and chips while wearing that dress.

It’s likely nothing could render my cock useless after watching her make me dinner in that dress and those heels. And it’s not the bubbly making the show erotic.

It’s simply her .

And a smidge of the bubbly.

Definitely a smidge of the bubbly.

To include the third bottle that I opened in the limo on the way here.

I hiccup.

Bea smiles, and it’s so charming and ridiculous at the same time. How is one woman’s smile more charming than another’s?

“ Eat , Simon,” she says.

I lift the corn dog and study the one dog that appears to be three. “Do you make burgers— hic! —on sticks too?”

Her low, throaty laughter makes me temporarily forget where I am. “I’ll look into that.”

“What about your chips? Do you intend to place them on sticks too?”

“I’d have to charge extra for a basket of fries on sticks.”

She bites into a chip and smiles at me again.

My lightheadedness goes lightheaded and my horniness grows hornier.

I want to lick her dimples.

I want to lick her dimples and her lips and her neck and her—dear god, what has this bubbly done to me?

The bottle stares at me.

I frown back at it.

It giggles conspiratorially.

“Do I have to feed you?” Bea leans across the table and pushes my hand toward my mouth, the warmth of her fingers and palm making my skin want to lick her skin too. “Eat the corn dog.”

That’s an excellent idea. But I wave my three corn dogs at her.

My one corn dog.

Just one. One that looks like three. “I only eat if someone tells me a secret.”

“You need a dinnertime secret?”

“Yes.”

“Do you need bedtime stories too?”

Ah, bedtime.

My favorite topic. “If the correct— hic! —storyteller is present and naked.”

She shakes her head and shoves the corn dog straight to my lips.

“Secret first,” I say against the fried dough.

This smells delightful.

Even better than the fried fish.

That has to be the champagne doing my thinking for me though. Nothing could possibly be as good as her fried fish, though her burgers come close.

I cross my eyes, and the three corn dogs become two.

“What kind of secret do you want?” Bea asks.

Tell me what you look like naked , my overactive cock and the bubbly team up on me to demand.

We dislike her , I remind them.

That makes her perfect for naked time , they remind me back.

“Simon?” Bea says.

I jerk my head back up to look at her, as I was apparently glaring at my crotch, and my head nearly floats off my neck.

Good grief, I’m plastered. “Yes?”

“Your lips are moving, but you’re not actually saying anything out loud.”

I giggle.

Giggle .

Whoops.

“Oh my god, eat the corn dog .”

I lift it as though I am a medieval knight and it is my sword. “But first, a secret!”

She laughs. “Okay. A secret. Here you go. Our last name used to be Beste . With an e on the end after the t . But no one knew if they were supposed to say Bestie —which was technically right—or Best —which was wrong—so my grandfather dropped the e when he married my grandmother.”

That is quite the secret. I shall have to write it down later. If I remember. “Truly?”

She nods, which my brain processes in slow motion. “I think he made the right choice. I’m very particular about who I’m besties with, but I enjoy being the best .”

“Is there anything about your life that’s not fascinating?”

“No. I’m even amusing when I scrub toilets. Have to make it fun or I won’t do it, and that’s not an option when you live with three boys. Well, lived . It’s just habit now. And that’s two secrets. Now eat .”

I obediently bite into the corn dog, pause to moan in utter delight, and lose my train of thought.

Do my thoughts have trains?

I think not this evening.

I’m fairly lucky my thoughts exist at all, given how light my head feels.

Being drunk is glorious. Why don’t I do this more often?

“Is that a good moan or a tortured moan?” Bea asks.

“I dislike you, so both.”

The blasted woman has the audacity to laugh at me. “You don’t like me?”

“Goodness, no. I detest you. You’ve put me in the same position my parents did all through my childhood, using me as a pawn in a lovers’ quarrel. I think you’re awful. And I rarely— hic! —think anyone is awful. Aside from my parents.”

My vision has crossed from the absolute glory that is this corn dog, so I can’t tell what that face is that Bea’s making at me.

And even if my vision were working, I daresay my brain isn’t up to it, so I don’t know that I would be able to decipher it regardless.

Oh, look.

The corn dog looks like a willy.

I giggle again.

“You’re very happy for a man having dinner with a woman he doesn’t like,” Bea says.

“I have the extraordinary talent of being able to be happy in any circumstance.”

“That is a remarkable talent.”

“I trained myself— hic! —without any assistance from the people who should’ve wanted me to be happy. Heaven help me, I could eat three more of these.”

“Finish this one first.”

“Tell me another secret.”

“It’s your turn. You get to eat another corn dog when you tell me a secret.”

Fascinating.

I believe she’s right.

I try to do the maths in my head about our conversation, and I find I can’t recall what I just said, which means she must be right.

She’s not nearly as pissed as I am.

Drunk pissed. The good kind of pissed.

The enjoyable kind of pissed.

“Do I know any secrets?” I ask Bea.

“I’m sure you do. Tell me how you and Lana met.”

“I made a terribly inappropriate pass at her while serving her spotted dick, and she was unfamiliar enough with us Brits to be enamored with awful pickup lines delivered in my charming accent. Though if you ask me, she is the one with the accent.”

I bite into the corn dog again and moan.

Her lips twitch up in a smile.

All six of them.

And her eight dimples.

What a treat, to watch Bea’s eight dimples .

“You don’t drink much, do you?” she says.

“Never. I tell all of my secrets when I— hic! —drink too much.”

“Are you really mad at me for taking you to Jake’s grand opening?”

“Furious.”

“That’s more believable when you say it without smiling.”

“And that’s my greatest trick, Beatrice Trixie Best. I have managed— hic! —to fool you into thinking you know what I’m thinking because I am the world’s best— hic! —smiler. I’m a smiley smiler who smiles the blues away and fools— hic! —everyone.”

“Eat more corn dog.”

She looks out the rear door, and she frowns before looking back at me. Her dimples have gone into hiding.

I reach toward her, intending to poke her cheeks until I locate her dimples, but she shoves my hand back.

Ah.

Right.

I’m holding the corn willy. Some women are so fussy about being touched on their faces with willies.

I giggle once more.

Bea shakes her head. “ Eat .”

“ Talk ,” I parrot back in her American accent.

“I’m beginning to understand why Lana never wanted to marry you.”

“Only beginning? Rather slow, aren’t you?”

Her eyes widen, and she tips her head back for a bloody good laugh once again.

I mentally pat myself on the back for temporarily outsmarting the alcohol long enough to amuse her.

Her laughter is music.

A veritable symphony that I’d like to bathe in three times—no, four times a day.

Do I remember how to count to four?

I lift my hand, see the willy on the stick, and giggle again. “Tell me another secret.”

“Are you going to remember this in the morning?”

“Every word.”

I don’t actually remember how I got here, so that’s probably not true.

Cheers to me for continuing to fake it.

“Daphne saved my life once.”

I sit straighter. “Truly? Did she save you from drowning? Hic! Or were you in a gunfight? Did she rescue you from a rabid animal?”

“That’s really where your brain goes?”

“I am very creative, Ms. Best.”

“Clearly.”

I wave my willy dog. “Carry on with the secret-telling, if you— hic! —please.”

“You don’t recognize Daph?” Bea asks.

“Should I?”

“I guess not. Some people do, some people don’t. Her family owns the Aurora Gardens hotel chain. They get covered in gossip pages sometimes. Daph most of all, until a few years ago.”

“Ah, I see.” I nod, and my brains slosh around inside my skull and request that I not nod again.

“She moved in with Hudson and me about four years ago when her parents disinherited her after she was kicked out of Austen & Lovelace.”

Oh, that is juicy.

Almost as juicy as the hot dog inside my corn dog that’s really a willy dog, which I’ve very nearly finished. “Go on.”

“You don’t know this story?”

“How the— hic! —hell would I know this story?”

“It was all over the news, and you were living in New York too, weren’t you?”

“New York high society doesn’t care what I know about London high society. I— hic! —don’t care what I know about London high society. And out of spite, I refused to acknowledge— hic! —that New York society exists. They are all, every one of them, welcome to lick my boots.”

Oh, my.

I do like watching Bea eat her corn dog.